


Five Times John and Angelica Drank Together (And One Time They Didn't)

by UpsideAround



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: 5 + 1, Angst, Gen, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 10:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6952807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpsideAround/pseuds/UpsideAround
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John scoffed. “There’s not enough wine in the world to make me forget how I constantly play wingman for the man I’m in love with.”</p><p>“There’s not enough wine in the world to make me forget how I introduced the man I’m in love with to my younger sister, but that’s not the point.” Angelica took a sip of her wine. “It’s like chocolate, but stronger. Just something to enjoy, and help ease the pain.”</p><p>(Or, in which John and Angelica are miserably in love with Alexander, but find some ease with each other.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times John and Angelica Drank Together (And One Time They Didn't)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry not sorry for this pain

**I:**

Angelica hosted a party, that’s what started it all.

Without that stupid party, Alexander wouldn’t have met her younger sister.

Without that stupid party, Angelica wouldn’t have torn Alex away from John in order to introduce Eliza. (Something she now regrets)

But Eliza and Alexander began to hit it off. They broke away from the main group to talk in the corner. Angelica watches as Alex says something that makes Eliza go beet red and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Alexander leans forward and follows her eyes around as she looks down in her embarrassment.

Angelica catches John’s eye. He’s watching the same scene, wearing a stiffly miserable expression. She’s sure that she’s wearing an identical look.

They exchange a knowing glance and each down the remaining alcohol in their cups.  


**II:**

“Remind me how we got here again?” John asked.

Angelica sighed. “Because we’re both in love with Alexander Hamilton, but can never do anything.”

“God,” John said, resting his head in his hands. “He’s out on a date with Eliza, and here we are. Sitting in a cold kitchen, complaining.”

He fell silent, as Angelica pulled out a bottle of wine from the cabinet. She also grabbed two glasses, they clinked together as she held them in one hand before setting them on the counter.

“We did it to ourselves,” She said, uncorking the wine.

“Don’t I know it,” John muttered. “He doesn’t talk about anything else. It used to be _John, look at this tweet; John, look at this ridiculous hipster restaurant; John, look at this song,_ but now it’s _John, look at this text Eliza sent me! John, look at this ridiculous hipster restaurant, should I take Eliza out there? John, listen to this song, it reminds me of Eliza._ ”

Angelica poured the wine into the respective glasses. She slid one toward John. “Come on, this will help.”

John scoffed. “There’s not enough wine in the world to make me forget how I constantly play wingman for the man I’m in love with.”

“There’s not enough wine in the world to make me forget how I introduced the man I’m in love with to my younger sister, but that’s not the point.” Angelica took a sip of her wine. “It’s like chocolate, but stronger. Just something to enjoy, and help ease the pain.”

“You’ve thought about this a lot,” John said, taking a drink.

“You haven’t?”

Neither of them spoke for some time. Angelica leaned against the counter, taking occasional sips of her wine. John simply downed his, and was left running a finger along the rim of the glass.

“You want to know what the worst part is?” Angelica asked.

John shook his head.

“It’s how, whenever I talk with Alex, there’s an electricity, a fire. We match wits on every level, there’s a sizzle in the air, and I just know that we could be something great. That’s the worst part. Knowing the potential, _feeling_ the potential, but it could never be. Do you know what I mean?”

John didn’t answer her question. “Pour me another,” he said. He was silent. He knew what she meant all too well.

Angelica finished her glass, and poured both of them another.

It was in this manner that they ended up drinking the entire bottle between the two of them.

“Ange,” John mumbled. “Can I call you Ange?”

Angelica snorted. “Mmm, no,” she said stubbornly.

“Great. Ange, d’ you ever find it funny that we screwed ourselves here?” he slurred.

“What kind of twisted masturbation?” Angelica said, finally collapsing into a seat on the stool next to John.

John giggled. “No, y’ know what I meant.”

“You’re right though, ‘s _super_ funny how we, like, played ourselves _so hard_.” Angelica leaned forward and attempted to keep a straight face.

This, of course, sent them spiraling into a cycle of laughter.

They were in such a state that neither of them considered the implications that Alexander and Eliza never came back to the house after their date. At least, not until the next day, when Eliza came home wearing Alex’s shirt.  


**III:**

John wasn’t sure when he and Angelica became friends, but he was grateful for it. While Alex would gush about how he and Eliza had exchanged “I love you”s, he was texting Angelica, who was dealing with the same thing on her end.

He had tried to talk to Lafayette and Hercules about Alexander, but they didn’t get it. They didn’t understand quite how every sentence Alex wove about Eliza drove a knife in his chest. They couldn’t grasp exactly what John meant when he said that counselling their relationship only twisted the knife further. And they certainly wouldn’t understand why John could never tell Alexander what he felt.

Angelica did.

And it’s not like he didn’t want to tell Alexander how he felt, he really did. But he respected his and Eliza’s relationship far too much to do anything.

Those two were polar opposites, but they held a reverence for each other that kept John up at night. Eliza fit Alexander like a glove. He was the flame, she was the stove that held him, focusing his passion. John would only add to the flames and burn the world down.

Eliza was better for him, anyway.

So when Alex asked John to help him pick out an engagement ring for Eliza, he didn’t say anything.

And if he ended up crying in Angelica’s arms as they both downed shots, well, that was nobody’s business.   


**IV:**

Two months later, when Eliza brandished her brilliant ring for the first time, Angelica was suddenly hit with the reality of it.

She plastered on a smile for Eliza, and she was happy for her sister, she really was. It just hurt.

“You knew this was coming,” John said, after she escaped the room and called him.

“I know!” She hissed into the phone. “Don’t patronize me, Laurens.”

John sighed. “Listen, how about you come over and we drink up this eggnog I’ve got. I was saving it for Christmas, but apparently Alexander proposed early.”

Angelica paused.

“It’s alcoholic,” John added.

“I’ll be over in twenty.”

Angelica loved her sister. Eliza had grown up to be everything she was wanted and then some. Angelica couldn’t help but think that Eliza had taken every mistake Angelica made and then fixed them her time around.

That’s what Eliza did. She made people better. She was the support behind Angelica, she always did things for others, and devoted herself completely to the people she loved. She deserved to have something for herself.

So Angelica never told Eliza that she loved Alexander. If she did, Eliza would probably give him up. And Eliza deserved to have more. Angelica knew that, if she told Eliza, that she would pretend to be fine, but it would be nothing more than a convincing lie. If Eliza was going to have something she deserved, Angelica had to give it to her.

She almost regrets introducing them.

She loved Eliza more than she loved Alexander, but she would never find another person that could match her as well as Alex.

John opened the door for her when she arrived at his apartment. He silently handed her a tall glass of eggnog. She almost snatched it out of his hands.

She was about halfway through drinking it when she looked up at John. “Where’s yours?” she asked. “Alexander is getting married, I’m sure you’re in need of something.”

John grinned. “Of course, I’ve got a fuckton in the kitchen. But you insist on standing in front of my doorway instead of coming in to drink.”

Angelica snorted. “Alright then. Let’s just sit around and rant about our problems.”

John shook his head, stepping aside so that Angelica could walk through the door. He led the way to the kitchen. “Actually,” he said, “I was thinking it would be better to just get our minds off of it. Honestly, we’ve discussed this at length, and I’ve cried enough about it.”

Angelica exhaled. John was probably right, and getting drunk on a semi-regular basis with no sense of satisfaction wasn’t any good.

Angelica quickly refilled her glass and marched over to the television. “Let’s karaoke and forget.”  


**V:**

Alexander leaned in and kissed Eliza. She giggled into the kiss, and when Alexander pulled back he had a stupid happy grin on his face.

“We’re married,” Alex gushed to her.

She grinned. “Married.”

John lightly smacked his hand on the reception table enthusiastically. “Hey, that’s what I’m talking about!”

Alexander laughed. “How about a shout-out to my best man?”

Lafayette and Hercules raised their glasses to John. John raised his back, and leaned his arm to the side to clink glasses with Alexander.

“Are you drinking already?” Angelica muttered from behind John, moving from her seat beside Eliza to stand in the center of the room.

“You’re not?”

Angelica shrugged. She straightened up and raised her glass, now in front of Alex and Eliza. “A toast!” she exclaimed.

The room turned to her.

“Eliza, Alexander, you two mean more to me than I could ever dictate. Your union is an ideal the rest of us only hope to achieve.” Angelica seemed to bite on her words. John looked down.

“And,” she continued, “here’s to the hope that you will provide for each other until the end of your days.” She lifted her glass one more time, and the rest of the room followed suit. Some clinked glasses together. There was some light applause as Angelica took her seat.

The music swelled, and Alex took Eliza’s hand and led her out to the dance floor. The other guests soon followed, but John was left sitting alone at the wedding-party table.

“May you always be satisfied,” John whispered at Alexander. Alexander, who was living up the best day of his life. His dazzling smile poured salt into John’s open, broken heart.

Angelica drifted in beside him. “They look happy,” she said.

“That’s the worst part,” John sighed. “Because I can’t be angry, bitter, or even resentful, because of how happy she makes him. I just wish that—”

“—it could have been me,” Angelica finished.

John nodded and took another drink from his glass. “Thank god for free alcohol at weddings,” he said, draining it.

Angelica didn’t bother to correct him that only the first glass was free. “Yeah,” she said, picking up a half-full glass on the table and downing it.

The table was littered with empty glasses from the toast earlier. The two that belonged to John and Angelica were long gone. The glasses at the table stood high and mighty, sparkling in the dancelight, but were unfulfilled.

There were only two glasses with anything left in them—And they were etched with “Bride” and “Groom”.

Angelica reached for them. She took one and offered the other to John. He took it, resigned.

“To wishing,” she said.

John nodded and drank. Angelica followed suit.   


**\+ 1:**

“It’s been a year.”

“Happy anniversary, Alex and Eliza,” John said to Angelica.

Angelica sighed. “Is it morally okay to pray your crush’s relationship doesn’t work out?”

John laughed. “It’s a bit late for that, I think.”

“Do you think we’ll ever find someone?” John asked as his laughter faded away.

“How dramatic is that? Destined to be alone, never finding love again,” she said mockingly.

John sighed. “You laugh, but honestly. I don’t feel like I can ever love someone the way I loved Alexander.”

Angelica propped her head up on the bed. “Loved, past tense?”

“Yeah.” John scrubbed his face. “Loving him hurt too much, so maybe if I talk about it in past tense, one day it will be the truth.”

They fell silent. Angelica relaxed back to a full lying position on the bed, and John rested his head back against the side of the bed, the floor hard underneath him.

Neither of them had proposed a drink, not even to change the subject or as a distraction. They didn’t need it this time. They were feeling, the worst kind of feeling but feeling nonetheless, and they knew that if they wanted to stop feeling, they needed to feel the pain first.

Angelica breathed through it. John choked on it.

“You’re right,” Angelica said after awhile. “I don’t think we can ever love the way we loved Alexander. But you’re wrong. We can find love again.”

“Where?” John asked miserably. “I’m sick of feeling this way, like the world is crushing me, and I’m dying unloved.”

Angelica swallowed. “I don’t know, but if I lose hope of finding it then I lose everything.”

John breathed, Angelica choked.

Alexander and Eliza were truly lucky. They had two people right behind them, ready to carry their world, because they loved them. Alexander and Eliza stood on the shoulders of John and Angelica, raised up and happy. They never felt the foundation beneath them waver, not for one moment, because John and Angelica stood strong, never betraying the turmoil they felt.

Selflessly, steadily, John and Angelica held Alexander and Eliza through thick and thin, to hell and back, across every star in the universe.

Yes, Alexander and Eliza were lucky to feel true love.

Though they never knew it.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [footnotes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8046382) by [queseyo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queseyo/pseuds/queseyo)




End file.
